NeurOptimal® Neurofeedback versus the rest

Other Systems:

The way most systems work is that first the practitioner needs to
make a diagnosis. (For this reason, with most systems the
practitioner needs to be a licensed healthcare practitioner). The
diagnosis will then determine what your brain will be told to do. The
diagnosis can be made by interview, evaluation of behavior and/or
extensive review of past history and medical records. A one-moment in
time picture of your brain may also be conducted, that shows the
dominant frequencies it is producing in what location. This one brief
"slice of time" is then used to direct training over
subsequent weeks or months. Needless to say, this evaluation process
is time consuming and expensive, and the client gains no direct
benefit from this cost.

The brain or client is diagnosed as having a particular disorder
which is then “treated”, relying heavily upon the knowledge and
experience of the clinician to direct that treatment. Treatment is
usually done by training up or down a minimal selection of
frequencies in different locations. The feedback provided is used by
the client to learn to produce more or less of these frequencies in
the particular locations. Typically, the focus of training will be on
one symptom cluster for a period of weeks or months until, hopefully,
there is resolution, at which point the training will be adjusted to
address another symptom cluster and so on. It is a linear, stepped
process, and sometimes the frequencies needed for one set of symptoms
in exactly wrong for another, leading to confusion and trial and
error training.

The practitioner needs to know a great deal about the
brain to be able to work skillfully, and even then, in each
case it can take weeks to know if what one is doing is actually the
"right” thing that a particular brain needs. The practitioner
must be skilled in watching for side effects, which are typically
recognized when the client complains about them, at which point
training is adjusted in some way. Again, trial and error.

NeurOptimal®

A first crucial difference is that when using NeurOptimal® there
is no need for diagnosis. Why is this? NeurOptimal® is designed to
give the brain information about what it has just done. The brain
then uses this information to organize itself. During a
session, the client listens to music or watches a movie file (avi,
mov or other popular movie formats). The music/movie plays
continuously when the brain is running “on course” (whatever that
course is for that particular brain) but as soon as NeurOptimal®
detects that the brain has “veered off” its path or has become
less stable than what it just was, feedback is provided to the brain
via a very brief pause in the sound. By offering this information
NeurOptimal® gives the opportunity to the brain to adapt itself in
response to the information, which then provides yet new and
different information for NeurOptimal® to mirror back. Like a dance,
NeurOptimal® and the brain adapt to each other microsecond by
microsecond, dynamically adjusting their steps based on what the
other has just done.

This dynamic perspective is extremely
different from the other, traditional neurofeedback systems. These
systems require you to diagnose ahead, sometimes via what is called a
QEEG or brain map, which is a decision on which direction the
practitioner feels the brain needs to be pushed as a result of a
single static picture taken days or weeks earlier. These are called
protocols. Diagnosing and then treating in this way is actually a
VERY awkward and slow feedback loop from NeurOptimal®’s
perspective that does not offer the on-going “self-correction”
that naturally happens as part of the brain’s dance with itself.

With NeurOptimal® the brain is simply interacting adaptively with
itself moment by moment, not striving to produce "more" of
some frequency and "less" of another according to an
outside “expert”. While those kinds of changes may be observed,
they occur as part of an intrinsic self-organizing principal rather
than an artificially imposed constraint. This is a large part of both
the inherent power and safety of NeurOptimal® and how it invites
very seamless change.

The unique dynamical targeting of NeurOptimal® helps naturally
release the places where you are “stuck” by providing information
to the brain across a very wide range of frequencies. Many of these
frequency bandwidths Zengar has itself "discovered,"
described and developed over a period of years and tens of thousands
of client hours. Other systems train with a very small
“toolbox” of frequencies, creating states which, if over trained,
can create major instabilities. NeurOptimal® targets sixteen
different sets of frequencies across the right and left brain, each
target naturally balancing off the effects of others. This means you
will not “overtrain”, nor create unwanted states and — instead
of just getting a limited possible “cure” for a problem — you
get everything. So whether you come in with issues you want to
address, improvements you’d like to make, personal growth or
peak performance—you get it all.

The contents of this website including all images, text, graphics, and
other materials are provided for informational purposes only and is not
intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis,
or treatment.